NEVER MIND

Accused Teacher Killer Now Insists His Confession Was All a Lie

Ryan Duke said he initially lied to investigators because he didn’t think the real culprit would step up.

A man who previously admitted to killing a Georgia teacher has pulled back his confession more than 16 years after the woman’s death. Initially, Ryan Duke told investigators that he had accidentally hit and killed Tara Grinstead in her home when she snuck up behind him as he was stealing something out of her purse. But during his trial Tuesday, he reversed the story and said he’d lied. On the witness stand, Duke claimed that his friend Bo Dukes woke him up on a night in October 2005 and admitted to killing Grinstead. Duke told the court on Tuesday that he took the blame for Grinstead’s death because he felt Dukes wouldn’t admit to it, but defense attorneys say drugs influenced him to lie at the time. Dukes denied killing Grinstead and wasn’t charged in her murder, but he was convicted in 2019 and sentenced to 25 years in prison for assisting Duke in disposing the teacher’s body. Grinstead’s body has never been found.